


He Stays

by nothingislittle



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Gen, M/M, One Shot, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pre-Reichenbach, Sherlock-centric, Short, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingislittle/pseuds/nothingislittle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He thinks about why, why he bothers at all with this extended and so often tedious and dull human contact and then a phrase that was stored somewhere far away in the palace of his mind floats to the surface and glides through the air in front of his face, like an italic footnote at the end of his pages and chapters and books and volumes of thought:</p><p>Because he stayed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Stays

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive the run-ons. I imagine in the whirlwind of Sherlock's mind one thought runs into the next rather frantically, with gathering speed, like a snowball downhill - so that's what I was trying to convey.

Sherlock lays awake at night and stares at the cracked and flaky ceiling above his bed, thinking about a whole world of things at once.

He thinks about this case and that and Lestrade and bloody Anderson and how the Yard is full of morons.

And about the thumbs in the fridge and the coagulation of saliva after death and about the possibilty of a 144th type of tobacco ash.

And about how Mrs. Hudson should really get someone in to look at this ceiling because it looks like it could cave in a at any moment and John would fall through the floor right on top of him and how maybe he wouldn't mind that so much and about how that's not right because that's not really how the house is laid out and about how now he wishes it  _were_  laid out that way because then hoping it would cave in so John could fall through and be with him wouldn't be so ludicrous except yes it would so shut up and go to sleep already.

He turns over and wonders why he even bothered to go to bed in the first place. 

 _Oh yes_.  _"Doctor's orders."_ _  
_

He thinks about why he even listened to John, why he puts up with John at all with the way he pouts about body parts in the flat and the incessant tching whenever Sherlock finds something remotely interesting to do, like target practice, or plucking out mad, repetitive pizzacato melodies on his violin or dedeucing the destinations of the people walking down the street beneath their windows. He thinks about why, why he bothers at all with this extended and so often tedious and dull human contact and then a phrase that was stored somewhere far away in the palace of his mind floats to the surface and glides through the air in front of his face, like an italic footnote at the end of his pages and chapters and books and volumes of thoughts.

_Because he stayed._

That's right, he did stay. Sherlock turns once more onto his back and things about this now. 

 _You were yourself and he stayed._ Hmm, yes, there's a puzzle there. 

Called him an idiot, vacant, called out every tiny detail of his life that perhaps even he didn't know or want to know or certainly want anyone else to know. 

 _Amazing,_ he's said.  _Extraordinary_ _._

And then he'd shot someone, killed a man, to save you from him - to save you from yourself, from your wonderful, horrible, stagnant, tempest of a mind. A minefield within yourself, just a hair's breadth between stepping on to the trigger of your destruction and slipping into what always seems like ceaseless, mind-numbing boredom. 

He saved you. Was saving you.

Is. Saving. You.

That's when Sherlock Holmes realizes that it's both despite and because of who the detective is that here, in a flat shared with a mad man, John stays.  

The wretched dichotomoy of the situation feels like it's going to tear him apart, rip him open from the inside. He wants to run upstairs and beg John to never leave but also to get out immediately, before Sherlock has to feel anything more or anything less, ever. 

He lays, still as a corpse, in the center of the bed, on top of the perfectly made egyptian cotton and artfully arranged pillows. He stares up through the cracked and flaky ceiling, imagining John sleeping above him and he doesn't want to think any more. 

Shutting his eyes, he slowly releases the breath he was holding and one more treacherous thought comes: _I hope I dream of being close to you - because you're never more far away than when you're right in front of me._


End file.
